


It's a Cruel World, Mr. J (The Continuation Remix)

by jemejem



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Withdrawal, Gotham City AU, Harley Quinn! Neil, Implied/Referenced Torture, Joker! Andrew, M/M, Neil Josten is Hot As Fuck, Neil Josten is a Little Shit, Pet Names, less toxic relationship than the actual joker/harley relationship, oh yeah riko is batman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-12 05:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20997812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemejem/pseuds/jemejem
Summary: Neil Josten's just a nobody.A nobody who let Gotham City's most volatile villain out of his cage.Who's more screwed over - the Moriyamas, or the Monster himself?





	It's a Cruel World, Mr. J (The Continuation Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gluupor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gluupor/gifts).
  * Inspired by [It's a Cruel World, Mr. J](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15116174) by [gluupor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gluupor/pseuds/gluupor). 

> Please read Gluupor's "It's a Cruel World Mr. J" first! This is a perspective shift and continuation of that amazing story.

In an elegant chair, with ornately carved armrests and a plush velvet cushion, a man sat with his legs loosely crossed at the knee: One of his ring-adorned hands spun a knife whilst the other swirled a glass of red. 

“Play it again.”

The CCTV footage was rewound: He watched, enraptured, as a meek, curly-haired guard subdued the uniformed guard outside of the Monster’s cell with little more than a precise catch to the throat. He opened the cell door and unlocked the straitjacket that kept Andrew Minyard restrained, leading the man out and down the hallway. A few moments later, the Monster pinned him up against the wall with a knife he must have snatched off the guard, grinning wildly. 

The last camera had only picked up three figures, one much shorter than the others, clothed fully in black with tasteless ski-masks and a nondescript van. He could guess who they were. The Monster’s own brother, cousin, and the man who’d abandoned Batman’s side almost a year ago. Kevin Day. The five of them sped off, away from Easthaven Asylum and into the depths of Gotham City. 

He put down his glass to pick up the file. It was practically useless: Neil Josten, aged 22, had worked at Easthaven as a guard for six months prior to his betrayal. Background check was clean, only because there  _ was  _ no background. 

The man took up his glass once more, inconceivably exasperated. He was surrounded by imbeciles. 

“It seems as though your son has returned.” He allowed, craning his head back to where his Butcher was stood to the right of his chair. 

“My lord,” He answered, despite being a good thirty years his senior. He’d served the man’s father: He was required to serve him, too. “I will locate and subdue him immediately.”

“I’ll give you time to satisfy your desire for retribution,” He said, waving off the Butcher’s concerns with a lazy flick of his fingers. Uncrossing his legs, he sat forward and used the tip of his knife to trace the blur of Neil Josten’s shadow as he closed the van’s doors behind him and vanished. 

He smiled absently. “Let’s see what little Junior does first, shall we?”

  
  


*

Three rules. That was  _ all  _ he fucking asked. Three simple, crucial rules to abide by whilst Andrew withered away in the bathroom, sick to all hell and trying his damned best to get those stupid fucking pills out of his system. Stupid fake smile. Stupid false cheer. Now he had as many people calling him the Joker as he did the Monster. Three rules seemed fair. Achievable. Not too much to ask of Mr J. He’d crowded the man up against a wall with a grin and a knife and gave him three rules.

One. Keep Kevin safe. (The very Kevin Day who abandoned Gotham City’s favourite hero, Batman, or Riko Mori-Fuck-Face, to join the Foxes instead. It was a necessary but awful burden.)

Two. Do not antagonise the Moriyamas. 

Three. No one is allowed to drive the GS but Mr J. 

Then Neil had taken the knife away with little more than a flick of his fingers, instead pressing Andrew’s empty hand against the scars that ravaged his stomach. Trust me, he’d said. 

It’d only taken six days after his release, six days into his withdrawal process, locked in the basement of Allison’s exuberant townhouse, when Bee came knocking with the news. 

Not only had Josten let Kevin go ambling around downtown , he’d intentionally followed Kevin into the mid-city Ferdinand bank to lace the Moriyama and Wesninski vaults with explosives and cause the building to implode. 

And when they’d inevitably found themselves cornered by none other than Batman and his new sidekick, Spear? The unpredictable  _ imbecile  _ threw Kevin the keys to the GS and took on two superheroes at once. Batman got away, Spear got caught up in an unfortunate accident where a pole from the imploded building they were fighting within crushed his skull, Neil Josten almost got himself killed and successfully broke all three of Andrew’s simple rules. 

“Bring him to me.” Andrew groused, hiding the tremors in his hands by balling them into fists. 

Bee levelled him with a knowing gaze. “Twenty-one days to break the cognitive reliance upon your medication. Then we’ll see.”

_ Oh, Bee _ , Andrew thought, a few hours later, lying naked on the blissfully cool tiles of the basement’s bathroom as convulsions wracked his body. So reasonable. So sensible. Of course Andrew couldn’t face him like this. He couldn’t have shaking hands when he strangled Neil to death.

*

He was having dinner when a shy knock happened upon the dining room’s doorway. He didn’t acknowledge whoever had arrived but for a slight raise of his head. They took that for what it was and moved quietly to stand beside him, before falling to one knee. 

“I failed,” Riko croaked, pathetic as he was. “I am sorry.”

The man had seen the whole ordeal the morning after the Ferdinand bank attack. Five million dollars worth of riches and cash were no longer in his grasp. It was a dent upon a perfectly polished car, still functional, still worth more than one could truly imagine, but the dent was intolerable and obvious all the same. 

Spear was dead, though the man knew that the ex-Marine was unstable and irrational at best. He’d employed him only to victimise the Monster but it seemed as though he’d showed his hand and dealt the card too soon. 

It was no matter. Just a dent. 

“I will capture this Neil Josten, whatever it takes. I’ll do it.” His brother promised, clutching onto the armrest of his dining chair. “I will annihilate any and all threats to you, my lord.”

The man merely hummed. 

*

At least Josten was sensible enough to knock. 

Three weeks had passed: Andrew had relocated himself from the basement to the suite upon the uppermost floor, where a balcony overlooked the small courtyard behind Allison’s extravagant home and the Gotham City skyline beyond it. He’d promised Bee there was no need to fear any irrational behaviour that might’ve lead to him toppling off the four-storey balcony, because it was true. That was never the way to go. He’d probably survive, anyway. 

He was lounging in the armchair that resided in the corner of his room, smoking, when Neil Josten let himself in. 

Andrew almost barked out a laugh, despite feeling particularly scraped-out. “My, my. Allison got to you, I see.”

For someone hell-bent on colouring within the lines, this seemed completely nonsensical. Half of his hair seemed to be his natural colouring, a vibrant auburn that matched his brows and lashes. The other was a lolly-pop blue, the colour of his eyes in the evening sun. A white shirt clung to his frame from the elbows, occasionally stained pink and blue. His shorts were  _ obscenely  _ small, exposing muscular thighs only clad in shredded fish-net stockings. 

“She was curious.” Neil said, crossing his arms. Christ alive, Andrew hadn’t expected this. He’d always remained intrigued by Josten’s continued kindnesses within Easthaven. He’d been a pretty, if mediocre, face to look at, and an occasionally stimulating source of conversation. The ticket was that he’d gotten Andrew the hell out of there, but it’d still taken this long to figure out who Neil Josten was. 

A problem. 

“Riddle me this.” He stood up and pinched his cigarette out between forefinger and thumb. “I gave you three rules. You insisted that I trust you, and yet you successfully break them all not a week later. Then you show up like  _ this— _ blue eyed, red haired, sharp tongued—and think I won’t stab you?”

“I’ve always been sharp tongued, red haired and blue eyed.” Neil said, without fear. He cocked his head to the side. “It’s not my fault you couldn’t see it. You know that you’re the only person I’ve never lied to?”

“Your entire existence is a lie.” Andrew heard the snarl creeping into his voice. An old defence mechanism. He steeled himself back into cold indifference. “Your name, your age, your story. None of it is true.”

“You asked me once for a story.” Neil pointed out, a contradiction, a paradox, a box within a box within a box within a box. “I omitted details, but nothing I said was untrue. If you ask me, I’ll tell you. Not for free, and not without confidence that it’ll never leave this room. But I will tell you.”

So he asked. 

*

“You had him,” The man said, stood by the large windows that arched their way across the westerly wall of his apartment. “And he got away.” 

“I’ve marked him.” The Butcher said. “I seriously maimed him. If it weren’t for those meddling Foxes, he’d be here.” 

“I do not want an  _ if.”  _ He snapped. “I asked you to bring him to me. You have witnessed first hand the damage your son has caused. I asked you to bring me Nathaniel Wesninski: Instead, you prioritised your personal vendetta and allowed him to escape from your grasp. Do you understand what you’ve done?”

“Your father wouldn’t have let it come to this.” The Butcher groused. “Your father would have understood the risk he posed and put a stop to it.” 

“My father is dead. You answer to me. Are you questioning that?”

His head bowed. “No, my lord.”

He looked back out the window. From here, all looked orderly, but he could see the fissures that were spreading faster than he could contain them. 

The Foxes were coming for him, but it was hardly more than a chip on his shoulder.

He would be ready.

*

A singular knuckle tapped on the door of the bathroom, three times with the appropriate skip in pulse, and Andrew let himself sit up a little. He probably looked garish, thanks to spending the morning chucking up every meal he’d ever considered, but Neil never seemed to care, his fingers dragging over Andrew’s neck and shoulders when given the chance and the consent. 

Depending on the day, he was all over Andrew. It was exhilarating. Confronting, as first: Perplexing, for sure. People looked at Neil wherever he went: It just seemed a little far-fetched that Andrew was the one to have caught his eye. Other days he was off in his own head, unable to recognise Andrew even if he was stood toe-to-toe with him. He would plot for hours on end, thinking of the cruelest ways to bring a man to his knees. 

Neil was a good liar, but Andrew was even better at seeing through the veneer. He was far more than he claimed to be, but Andrew had had his eye on him for a while now (in more ways than one) and knew Neil’s intentions were honest. He’d spilled the truth to Andrew for truths given in return. They understood each other: Andrew never thought he’d find that. 

He’d never thought that he’d be allowed to  _ have  _ that. 

It was insane that Andrew had once thought Neil was sane, even though Neil had always given him little treats in prison, always given an extra ear for Andrew’s drugged ramblings. What was sanity, anyway? If it was real, neither of them had it. Living alongside the man made that painfully clear: He was paranoid and sceptical and a pathological liar and clearly unstable as fuck.

It drove Andrew up the wall, and not always in a bad way. 

“‘Drew,” Neil called. 

Andrew stood up, straightening up his shirt and hair and doing his best to keep the bile down his throat. He’d been knocked out with chloroform whilst attempting to rescue Neil from his father a week ago and it was still fucking with his head. He unlocked the bathroom door and slipped out, closing it quietly behind him. When he turned, Neil was stood right in front of him: He hadn’t even taken off the black trench-coat but his heels were thrown carelessly onto the couch. His fishnets were torn at the ankles and on his toes, where the shoe straps rubbed constantly. 

It was a shame he was still wearing that coat: Andrew could guess exactly what he wore beneath it, and knew it wasn’t much. Ever since Allison had taken a hold of him, well. Andrew wouldn’t consider himself shallow, but Mr J. truly was a sight for sore eyes.

Neil’s hands came up to pinch Andrew’s cheeks as he clocked an adorable pout. And really, fuck Neil for making Andrew think his frown was adorable. What a fucking asshole. 

“You’re looking better, Drew.” Neil said, rubbing his fingertips over the newfound flush on Andrew’s cheekbones. Andrew let a hand wind around Neil’s neck and squeezed.

“Call me that one more time and I’ll kill you.” Andrew warned. Neil let himself smile. 

“Sure you will. Don’t you want to know what I saw?”

Right. Yes. Neil’s reconnaissance mission. Scouting that Batman fucker and his affiliations with the Butcher’s League, Neil’s own father. Neil had insisted upon the mission, despite the burns and bruises that still littered the exanses of his skin, and he probably had good information that everyone needed to hear.

But Neil was warm and his skin was soft, and Andrew wanted that. He wanted something to take the edge off this chloroform hangover. He wanted to bury his fingers into Neil’s hair, of which was still half the colour of blueberry bubblegum. Andrew couldn’t remember the last time he admitted he wanted something: It was all-consuming and impossible to ignore.

Andrew’s fingers found their way to the buttons of Neil’s trench coat, and the man gave him a knowing smile. He had different brands of smiles: His loopy grin, reminiscent of his father, was wide but didn’t reach his eyes. It came out when he was at his wit’s end and ready to shove a knife through someone’s neck and then watch blood spurt from the arteries. Then there was his coveted smile, often on the tail end of a succinct burst of laughter. Most of the time it was just a curl to the corners of his lips. Often enough, if Andrew made the time to be gentle, he’d let his eyes crinkle and his teeth show, revealing something that Andrew was sure no one else had seen. 

When he smiled like that, the scars under his eyes disfigured the already distorted cheek-bone tattoos until they were just small black smudges towards the corner of his eye. 

But looking into Neil’s gaze made Andrew feel a little loopy himself, so he watched as the coat fell, and Neil was standing in front of him with only a tiny pair of denim shorts and a torn shirt, stained with red and blue just like his hair. 

“We’ll burn Gotham down tomorrow.” Andrew answered. 

Neil grinned.

*

The man watched from a distance, as he usually did, as the small squadron marched their way through his city, guns blazing and caution thrown to the wind. It was all the news could document: The Foxes, marching brazenly towards their victory. The vigilante justice group that would free Gotham city from corruption and lies: The true heroes of the city, not the Moriyama patented and fabricated heroes that looked as though they’d hopped right out of a cartoon.

They’d done a fine job, he had to admit. Months ago they’d gone for the Ferdinand bank, and since then, much of the city’s infrastructure was targeted, the truth wheedled and needled out in ways that the man hadn’t expected. 

Then they’d exposed Batman as a fraudulent pawn in the man’s game, someone who held no power and remained merely as a figurehead. It was through Batman that they revealed the Butcher  _ and  _ his league of assassins were under the man’s thumb too, orchestrating chaos to heighten his status as this city’s overseer. 

When he’d been sent his Butcher’s dismembered hand, with ‘ _ xoxo - mr j.’  _ etched into the knuckles, he’d known that there was no one he could trust to salvage this wreckage. Not his uncle, nor brother and his meddling Ravens. Not his League. 

Ichirou sighed and loaded his gun.

*

Andrew would never understand or share the joy that the other Foxes felt at their ill-conceived victory, but at least Neil and Kevin both understood the hardest obstacle was yet to come. He numbered his knives, counted they were all right where he needed them to be, and looked up to Moriyama Tower. Ichirou would be sat upon his throne, waiting for them to come crashing through the door, only to reveal they had all failed. That he had watched their every move and known they were coming. 

“Sugar,” Neil murmured, always under his breath to avoid the others overhearing. Andrew fucking  _ hated  _ it when he called him by those infantile nicknames, but no matter what Andrew said or did, he would only arch his brow and ask “ _ Something wrong, ‘Drew?”  _

Look—Andrew hadn’t intended to give in to a pipe dream, to an unattainable fantasy such as the likes of Neil Josten. He prided himself upon his ability to control himself, but something had shifted in his chest when Neil threw himself in front of Proust’s bullet, clutching onto Andrew’s hand and asking for a story as the light in his eyes had come dangerously close to flickering out. Andrew hadn’t asked for his martyr complex, his comforting company, his tireless understanding. He got it anyway.

“I’ll kill you.” Andrew said absently as he repeatedly unloaded and reloaded his gun. They were on top of a roof, readying to fly via helicopter. Neil took the gun from him, slow enough that Andrew could have snatched it back, and turned off the safety. 

Neil’s answer irked Andrew even more as he murmured “Save it for later, won’t you?” with a wicked grin and something sinister in his eye. 

It drove Andrew up the  _ wall. _

“Fucking hell,” Kevin groused. He was the only one closest enough to hear. “You’re both sickening.” 

“Fuck off.” Neil said, still holding Andrew’s gaze. He took him by the wrist, avoiding skin and curling his fingers in Andrew’s sleeve. “Shall we?”

Andrew tucked a curl behind Neil’s ear, flashing his teeth with his slow smile. “Stay frosty, Mr J.”

He’d lived up to his name, the Monster, a dozen times over by now. If all went to plan (but also if they just died), this would be the last time. It sounded too good to be his, but realistically, it was just beyond his reach. One more step and he’d have it: Freedom. 

He’d take Moriyama money and live his life in luxurious solitude, doing whatever the fuck he wanted for the rest of his damned life without no one and nothing. 

His arm wound involuntarily around Neil’s waist and pulled him close as Wymack lifted the chopper into the air, and Andrew clung onto the rungs of the ladder that hung underneath it. He fucked hated flying, period, but this was by far the worst thing he’d dealt with all day. Not sewing Neil up in an alleyway. Not bringing Kevin down from a sporadic panic attack. He grit his teeth and Neil laughed into his shoulder, lifting his arm to his gun into the air with glee as they soared above the city. 

Well, Andrew thought, fingers dug into the taut ridges of Neil’s hipbone as they journeyed towards Moriyama Tower. 

Maybe not with no one.

*

The bar, admittedly, was rather lavish. Andrew was comfortable as he nursed a glass of gin, sinking lower into the armchair. It was a little softer than what he usually drank. He didn’t need something to take off the edge, seeing as he was angled away from the enormous windows that displayed Gotham City in all its glory. He wanted to be sober tonight. 

Ironically enough, he was in Moriyama Tower: The one place those around him had dreaded for years. The Foxes had done a good job at installing a council - Mayor Jeremy Knox had teeth like deep-sea pearls and Andrew couldn’t stand his presence for more than a moment, but he kept Kevin busy - and refurbished the entirety of the Moriyama Tower for their own purposes. 

Finders keepers, he supposed. He spent most of his time away from the mid-city area, preferring to enjoy the outskirts of the city with his share of Moriyama money, living just how he’d planned. 

Luxuriously. 

And almost alone.

When Andrew spotted a familiar man in silken-black gown waltzed to the bar, red and blue hair curling around his ear and the angular corner of his jaw, he crooked his fingers at a wandering waiter. The man ambled over with an arched brow as Andrew threw the rest of his shot back. 

“Another?” The waiter asked. 

“No.” Andrew slid the glass across the table to his right. It was perfectly smoothed white marble and the glass spun without a hitch into the waiter’s hand. “But I’ll get a vodka lime and soda for the one in the black dress. Keep him sober.” 

He put his feet up onto the ornately carved coffee table in front of him, crossing his feet at the ankles, and waited. 

Like clockwork, he felt hands sliding over his shoulders and down the lapels of his suit (of which he couldn’t wait to get out of) as Neil leant down to whisper in his ear. “Hello, sugar.” 

“Hello, Mr. J.” He craned his neck up. Big blue eyes batted down at him as Neil Josten, in all his glory, smiled.

“Like what we’ve done with the place?” He let his lips drag over the shell of Andrew’s ear and trailed his hands down further. “You might remember that we unloaded a full round into Ichirou Moriyama’s forehead, right by the pool table over there.” Andrew felt the upward curve of Neil’s lips as he smiled. “We even kept the rug he bled out on. Framed in a special room out back.” His fingers, painted nails and all, scoured dangerously close to Andrew’s belt buckle. “Perhaps you’d like to see it.” 

Andrew wanted to tear that dress off him. He couldn’t decide if he liked Neil in embellished and extravagant dresses or in his bloodied anti-hero getup more. He supposed he didn’t have to decide if he could strip Neil bare in either option. 

He hauled himself out of his plush armchair and marvelled at the way the dress clung to Neil’s hips. It was practically a slip, with the thinnest straps imaginable and a slit up the left leg. His scars were on full show, including the puckered gun wound Proust had fired into his neck. Andrew let Neil wind their fingers together. 

“Come, seeling night.” He said, leading Neil by the wrist. He knew exactly where the rug was framed.

Neil grinned. “You can’t tame me.” 

No, Andrew thought. He couldn’t. 

But he’d never wanted to anyway.

*

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I really loved participating in the remix this year, congrats to everyone who joined in!! <<<333

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for 'It's a Cruel World, Mr. J (The Continuation Remix)'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27797044) by [SecretlyAMushroom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretlyAMushroom/pseuds/SecretlyAMushroom)


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